But Done's first experience of a license-hunt was largely farcical. Mr. Commissioner McPhee had chosen a sweltering hot day for his hunt. Most of the diggers on Diamond Gully were below, sheltered from the mordant rays of a sun that blazed in the cloudless sky, so close to earth that its heat struck the face like a licking flame. Jim had just brought some picks from the smithy, when he saw the troopers, headed by the magnate on a fine chestnut, descend upon the gully, their glazed cap-peaks and their swords flashing gaily in the sun. The mounted men divided at the head of the gully, and came down on each side of the lead; the foot police followed Commissioner McPhee, head Serang and cock of the walk from Sawpit Gully to Castlemaine. The duty of the foot police was to rouse the diggers out of their drives, and enforce the orders of the high and mighty McPhee. On Diamond Gully the wash was so shallow that the police had no difficulty in getting the men to the surface, and the inrush of the troopers was the signal for a swarming The men poured from the crowded claims, and in a few seconds the gully was awakened to violent action, and given over to tumult.

The air resounded with the yells of the miners, raised in warning and derision. 'Jo!—Jo!—Jo!' The cries travelled the whole length of the lead, like a salute of musketry. Mike came up the rope, hand over hand.

'A license-hunt,' he said. 'Now you'll see how these gaol warders amuse themselves.'

'What are we supposed to do?'

'Have your license handy. Show it to Huntsman McPhee, and keep your hands off his hounds.'

Mr. Commissioner was not having much trouble; he came through the claims like a monarch demanding obeisance and tribute, and the shouts of the miners followed him. 'Jo!—Jo!—Jo!' The men made a sort of chorus of the jibe. A fistful of wet pipe-clay thrown from the cover of a tip struck the sergeant of troopers in the face, and he spurred his horse furiously towards the spot. There was a rush of police and diggers, and a bit of a melee resulted, but Sergeant Wallis received no satisfaction. Four or five unlicensed diggers had been captured, luckless workers for whom Fortune had spread no favours, and these were handed over to the mounted police, who guarded them with drawn swords, accelerating their movements with blows of the blade and not infrequent prickings, for the hatred in which the diggers held the troopers was not more fierce than the troopers' hatred for the men.

Done and Burton stood on the little hillock of mulluck about their shaft, watching the course of events, when the Grand Serang rode at them. He was a fine stamp of a man, and loved an effect in which he was the central figure. It was becoming in a mere digger to make way for the horse of Mr. Commissioner. Burton, however, stood his ground, the flush burning through his tan, and, rather than give way an inch or be run down, raised his hand and struck the noble nag of the big official on the nose with his palm, with the result that the chestnut went up on his hind-legs, pawing the air, and rattled down the tip on his heels, while the crowding diggers, to whom any indignity inflicted upon a commissioner, however trivial, was a joy and a solace, set up a shout of scornful laughter.

'What the devil, sir, do you mean by striking my horse?' thundered the irascible McPhee.

'I don't care to be ridden down like a thieving dingo' replied Mike.

'Sergeant, search this impudent jackanapes, and if his license isn't O.K., jam the beggar into the logs!'

At this point another handful of white clay was thrown from the back of the crowd, and this time McPhee was the target. The clay struck hint in the breast, and clung to his black cloth. Again there was a rush of indignant and amazed under-strappers, and the Commissioner, crimson with wrath, raised himself in his stirrups and shouted orders, the execution of which it was beyond even his great power to enforce. They enjoined the immediate precipitation of the offenders into the Bottomless Pit.

A diversion was created by the sudden appearance of a new quarry. A slim youth had darted from behind one of the piles of mullock, and was running at full speed up the lead towards the head of the gully, followed by three foot police.

'After him!' shouted McPhee.

A couple of troopers and two more foot police joined in the chase, but the youngster was a good runner and very cunning. He kept to the mined ground, where the troopers would certainly have broken their necks had they put their horses after him, and springing like a wallaby he cleared the holes, and darted in and out amongst the tips, to the utter confusion of the lubberly and ill-conditioned pursuers. Straight up the lead he ran, and now all the foot police were hunting him, while the troopers rode along the right and the left of the gully to keep him from breaking for the tents, or for Boulder Hill, where there were hiding places amongst the big rocks and in the wombat-holes under them.

'Run him down!' shouted McPhee, furious after the indignities that had been put upon his high office. 'Five pounds to the man who nabs him!'

The diggers shouted a grand chorus of encouragement to the lad, and added a cry of contempt for Mr. Commissioner and all his horde. A number of the men joined in the chase, to add to the confusion of the police. The rest, crowded on the higher ground, formed a large audience, and a more enthusiastic audience, or a more vociferous one for its size, had never witnessed a sporting event in wide Australia. The excitement grew with every successful trick of the runaway, and now he was leading his hunters in and out amongst the claims at the gully's head, apparently quite indifferent to the heat of the day or the stress of the chase. The miners were giving the youth all the assistance they could by devising hindrances for the police. Barrows, picks, shovels, buckets, and hide-bags found their way under the legs of the pursuers, windlass-ropes were stretched to trip them up, and preoccupied miners jostled them at every turn, and endeavoured to detain them in argument.

Presently the prisoners, in the charge of three troopers, finding attention diverted from them, seized the opportunity to make a bolt for the hunted digger's haven of refuge, Boulder Hill, and the confusion of tongues swelled to one rapturous howl at the sight. The unlicensed diggers spread, running their best, and dodging smartly to avoid the horses. One poor devil went down under the hoofs of a big roan, and there arose another roar of different portent.

The youngster was being hemmed in amongst a few claims on the extreme left. The troopers had stationed themselves beyond, and the police were closing in on him, while the crowd yelled encouragement and advice. With a rush and a reckless spring from a mullock-heap, the youth cleared his enemies again, and came racing up the gully once more, the baffled police and a number of miners following pell-mell, the troopers cantering on the wings of the hunt. If the boy could reach the crowd where it was thickest there was a chance for him, but he was running straight at Commissioner McPhee, who sat upon his horse watching the chase, and relieving his official feelings with a flow of elegant objurgation.

On came the young digger, the cheers swelling as he advanced. The men of Diamond Gully had never so thoroughly enjoyed anything in the nature of a chase. It seemed that the race was to be to the swift. The crowd parted to take the runner to its heart, when Sergeant Wallis threw himself from his horse, and the young digger simply sank panting into his arms. Wallis put on a grip that had reduced many a recalcitrant convict to order, and looked inquiringly at McPhee, who had ridden to the spot. The crowd closed round, overlooking the scene from mullock-heaps and windlass-stands.

'Produce your license, you rascal!' roared the Commissioner.

The youth was too short of breath to speak, and remained panting under Wallis's hand.

'He has no license, sergeant. Run him in!' said McPhee.

'Sure, Commissioner dear, what'd I be doin' wid a license whin I'm only a woman?' The captive plucked the billycock from her head, and a mass of black hair fell over her shoulders.

Done, who had pressed to the front, recognised Aurora. That section of the crowd which saw and understood sent up a shout of surprise and jubilation. Wallis retained his grip on the girl, and the sight of his hands upon her stirred a savage resentment in Jim. He made a rush at the sergeant, but Mike was beside him and held him.

'Don't be a fool, Jim. Don't give them a chance,' he said. 'She's right as rain. McPhee can do nothing to her; he'll lumber you if you only open your mouth!'

'What'll I do with him—her, sir?' asked Wallis.

'A pretty chase you've led us, you vixen!' blurted the Serang. 'For two pins I'd chain you to the nearest log, and give the flies a treat.'

'Would hairpins do, Mack dear?' panted Aurora, thrusting an impertinent, flushed, handsome face up at the Serang, and feeling amongst her tangled hair.

There had been an expectant hush upon the men for the last few moments. On this broke a great bovine roar of merriment from the opulent lungs of Mrs. Ben Kyley, who stood foremost in the ring surrounding McPhee, the sergeant, and the girl, her strong white hands, suspiciously pipeclayed, supporting her shaking sides. The familiar guffaw was infectious; the diggers caught it up, and, laughing like madmen, closed in on Wallis, snatched his prisoner from his hands, and, hoisting her shoulder high, bore her off in triumph.

Commissioner McPhee, surrounded by his minions, rode from Diamond Gully that afternoon with one prisoner—the man who had been run down, and the crowd that ushered him out bore Aurora Griffiths aloft, and sang a long chant of derision, which, keenly as he felt it, the Serang did not dare resent.

X

NATURALLY, Aurora's popularity was greatly increased, and the tent of Mrs. Ben Kyley became a favourite rendezvous. The girl's good looks and her good and Mrs. Kyley's own breezy, genial disposition, were sufficient to assure a large interest on the part of the men; but Aurora, in taking action against the troopers, had identified herself with the enemies of officialdom. Thenceforth she was a public character. There were not so many women about the rush but that scores of sober, reputable diggers would have travelled far and drunk much indifferent rum merely for the privilege of gazing upon the merry, handsome face of a girl like Aurora Griffiths. Now she was in some measure their championess there was more reason for offering devotion at her shrine, and Kyley's saw busy nights.

'Why did you do it?' asked Jim a few nights later, throwing into his words a hint of reproach. Done was unconsciously assuming some little air of proprietorship over Aurora. Whenever the girl noticed it smiles sparkled in the corners of her brown eyes.

'Pure devilment! What else?' she answered.

'Wasn't it a little—just a little—' He was at a loss to express himself, and Aurora's laugh chimed in.

'The dear boy's brought his sinse iv propriety wid him!' she cried. 'Maybe ye' have a few words to say on moral conduct an' the dacent observances iv polite society, an' ye'll be axin' me to put on a proper decorum before the min. Arrah! ye have some purty maxims for young ladies, an' a heap iv illegant an' rare ideals iv yer own as to what's good an' becomin' in young persons iv the other sex, haven't ye, dear?'

'No, no, no!' cried Done, shocked to find how easily he had slipped into the attitude of the common moralist.

'I stand on my merits and my lack of them, Jimmy. There's only one of me here!' She touched her breast. 'And good, bad, or indifferent, my friends must take me whole.'

'Whole, then.'

'Wait, boy, you don't know a fifth of it yet.'

'Do your worst, and test my devotion, Aurora. I defy you!' Jim was getting on.

'Devil doubt you. You're a bold man, Mister Jimmy Done, an' I like your cheek, for all it's as smooth as my own.' She touched his face caressingly with her fingers, and turned to serve clamouring customers at the other end of the counter.

'Good-night, mate,' said a quiet voice at Jim's elbow. Done turned quickly, and started back a step with some amazement on beholding the pale, impassive face of the stranger who had attacked Stony at their camp in the Black Forest. The man was smoking a cigar. He was dressed after the manner of a successful digger, with a touch of vanity. He regarded Jim earnestly, and the young man experienced again the peculiar feeling the first sight of this stranger had provoked.

'Good-night,' he said.

'I see you recollect me.'

'Oh yes. Did Stony quite escape you that night?'

'He did, thank's to you, Done.'

'A man couldn't see murder done under his very nose without stirring a hand.'

'Don't apologize. I have no grievance. If I had killed him I should have regretted it more than the death of my dearest friend, although no man from the time of Cain had better excuse for murder. I suppose you have not seen the man since?'

'No!' answered Jim with emphasis.

'Meaning that you would not tell me if you had. You need not fear being an accessory before the act. I want Stony alive, Mr. Done.'

'Mister Done!' Jim laughed. 'I did not think there was a Mister on the camp. But how do you know my name?'

'I have heard it here to-night half a dozen times. My name is Wat Ryder—Walter Ryder, but mono syllabic Christian names are insisted on amongst our friends.' He pointed his cigar towards the diggers at the tables. 'Forgive me,' he continued in an even voice, 'but your scrutiny of me is suggestive. May I ask what there is in my appearance or my manner that disturbs you?'

The question was put without feeling of any kind, but it startled Jim a little. He was surprised to find that he had betrayed any trace of his emotion.

'Well,' he said, 'my experience of you has not been commonplace.'

'You mean that affair in the Bush?—a casual fight, with the usual loud language merely, for all you know.' Ryder maintained silence for a few moments. He was studying his cigar when he spoke again. 'By the way,' he said abruptly, 'I know a good deal about you, Done, if you came out in the Francis Cadman. He expected this announcement to have some effect.

'I saw you one day in Melbourne,' Jim replied. 'You were driving with Mrs. Macdougal.'

'Mrs. Donald Macdougal of Boobyalla,' said Ryder gravely.

'She was a shipmate of mine.'

Yes; and you saw my face for a moment in Melbourne and remembered it. You observe narrowly and quickly, Mr. Done. It was not Mrs. Macdougal who was most communicative on the interesting subject I have broached, however, but a very charming young friend of hers, Miss Woodrow. The young lady's concern was excusable in view of certain services, but nevertheless flattering. She asked me to constitute myself a sort of foster-Providence over you if we ever met, Mr. Done.'

Jim laughed to smother a pang.

'Do I need it, Mr. Ryder?' he asked. He fancied there was a flutter of the other's eye towards Aurora, but Ryder did not reply to the question. 'Miss Woodrow told me of the rescue,' he said, 'of your solitary disposition, and spoke of a life of suffering in England.'

Done's lips tightened; he squared his shoulders. The fear that had possessed him on leaving his birthplace was no longer upon him, but he desired no revelations, no digging into the past, and there was a hint of motive in the other's tone—he was inviting confidence. For a few moments Ryder bent a keen glance upon the younger man, his face bowed and in shadow, toying with his cigar.

'Jo!' yelled a voice out in the darkness.

Instantly every pannikin was emptied on the floor, and thrust into a digger's shirt.

'The traps!' cried Mrs. Ben, and her rum-jug flew into a tub of water behind the counter. Several bundles of washing were tossed out, a loaf of bread was thrust upon Done, and at the same moment the door was thrown back, and in marched Sergeant Wallis, followed by five police. Mrs. Ben Kyley was not surprised, and had expected that Aurora's imposition would bring a raid down upon her sooner or later, and here it was.

'You're selling sly grog here, ma'am,' said Wallis, sniffing like a retriever.

Ben Kyley rose silently from his stool and approached Wallis.

'Sit you down, Ben Kyley!' roared Mrs. Ben; and Kyley returned as silently to his seat, and sat smoking throughout the scene that followed, apparently quite listless.

'Am I selling sly grog, Mr. Sergeant? Then it's a miracle where it comes from. I haven't a drop in the place, or I'd stand you a nobbler gladly. It's my opinion there are worse-looking men than Sergeant Wallis in gaol.'

'Rubbish, ma'am! the place reeks of rum,' said Wallis.

'A bit of a bottle Quigley shouted for the boys, this being his birthday.'

'Quigley has too many birthdays. Search the place, boys!'

The police commenced a systematic search of the tent, examining both compartments, and trying the earthen floor for a secret cellar. They found nothing, and meanwhile Mrs. Kyley was bantering Wallis with boisterous good-fellowship.

'The idea of an officer of your penetration, sergeant, mistaking a poor washerwoman's tent for a grog-shop.'

The poor washerwoman does a big business, Mrs. Kyley.'

'Not amongst the police, Sergeant Wallis. It is a miserable living a washerwoman would make out of them. I hear they beat their shirts with a stick once a month, as we dusted the carpets in the old Country.'

'We can find nothing, sergeant,' said one of the police.

'Remember how Imeson tricked you all at Bendigo, Wallis, with a hollow tent-pole that held ten gallons of brandy.'

'I do, Mrs. Kyley. You were Mrs. Imeson then.'

'And if you have the luck I may be Mrs. Wallis one of these days.'

'Heaven forbid, ma'am!'

'Don't waste your prayers on me, sergeant. Maybe I deserve even that, my sins being many and various.'

'And sly grog-selling is one of them. But I'll have you there yet, my good woman.' Wallis turned his thumb down.

'Remember I am only a poor weak woman when that happens, sergeant. Will you have a drink before going? There's a nip left in Quigley's bottle.'

'No, ma'am, I don't drink,' answered Wallis from the door.

'Then, sergeant, commit your nose for perjury. It's bearing false witness against you all over the field.'

There was a yell of laughter, interspersed with the usual cries of 'Jo!' as Wallis passed out after his men, and the diggers bombarded Mrs. Kyley with the bundles of washing that had been hastily distributed amongst them. Ben Kyley followed the police out, and presently returned and nodded to Mary, who seized her jug and dived through the canvas partition. She was back again in a minute with a jug full of spirits.

'My shout, lads!' she cried. 'Roll up, and drink the health and long life of Mary Kyley!'

The device that enabled the washerwoman to deceive the police was known to a few of the diggers, but they kept the secret well. Her tent was pitched close to a big hollow gum-tree. High up in the butt nestled a barrel of rum, the bottom coated with cinders, like the interior of the burnt tree. From this barrel a pipe came down under the bark to a neatly disguised little trap-door where the canvas lay against the butt. A hidden slit in the tent corresponded with the trap-door. It was Ben's office to replenish the barrel at night, with kegs brought from their safe hiding-place in an abandoned claim, over which was pitched the tent of his mate, Sandy Harris. Mary had adopted this plan on three rushes, and her savings, regularly banked in Melbourne, already assumed the proportions of a modest fortune.

When the police were gone Jim looked about him in search of Ryder, but his acquaintance had disappeared. As his friendship with Aurora Griffiths ripened, Done shook off thoughts of Lucy Woodrow, since they never came without an underlying sense of accusation. He was enjoying his present life to the full. In his heart was a great kindness towards the people with whom he mingled. He was naturally sociable, a lover of his kind, and recognised now that half the torment of his life since coming to manhood had arisen from his isolation, from the lack of opportunities of gratifying this affection. He admired Aurora, comparing her with his youthful ideal, the strong animal, self-reliant, careless of custom. True, she lacked the intellectual superiority with which he had endowed his defiant Dulcinea, but he had even forgotten to take delight in his own mental excellence of late, so that did matter. He only concerned himself with living now. He was quite at his ease in Aurora's society, and the atmosphere on the Kyley establishment pleased him. The place was full of interest, but his warmest interest was in the full-blooded pagan who officiated as Hebe to the assembled diggers.

He had quite respectable qualms at times, seeing her the object of so much rough gallantry—qualms he stifled instantly as being in flat rebellion to his fine philosophy of individualism as applied to behaviour. His rights of man must be rights of women too. But, for all that, there was much comfort in the belief that Aurora showed no preference elsewhere. Quigley's prominence as a suitor was not due to any partiality on the part of the girl, but rather to Quigley's own aggressive character, and his imperturbability under her eloquent banter. To be sure, she persisted in treating Jim as an interesting boy, a line of conduct he found somewhat absurd, but which was partly the vein of her humour, and partly due to his inexperience in the role of Don Juan.

So the merry months passed, and the mates worked claim after claim on Diamond Gully, doing much prospecting work and sinking sundry duffers, but unearthing sufficient gold to make Done's riches a good deal of a nuisance to him, although translated into the biggest bank-notes available. During all this time Quigley's dislike for Jim was only kept within bounds by the vein of flippancy that ran through Aurora's demonstrations of preference for the younger man. The quarrel was inevitable, however, and it was precipitated by a half-drunken demonstration of affection towards Aurora on Quigley's part, which the girl resented with a savageness that betrayed an unexpected trait.

One Saturday night Done and Burton were partners in a four-handed game of euchre going on at one of the tables, when a sudden disturbance arose at the counter. Mrs. Ben Kyley's familiar rum-jug crashed and flew to pieces on the table amongst the men. The players were on their feet in an instant. At the other end of the compartment Aurora was struggling in the hands of Pete Quigley. Pete held her wrists firmly, and Aurora's fingers clutched the neck of a bottle. Her face was distorted with passion, no trace of its habitual humour remained; the fury of a mountain cat blazed in her eyes, her lips were drawn back from her large white teeth, which were clenched with a biting vindictiveness. The other men reseated themselves, watching the struggle without much concern. Mrs. Kyley shouted an uncomplimentary summary of Quigley's character from behind the counter. Jim alone advanced to interfere.

'Drop it, Quigley,' he said quietly, but his warmer feelings stirred. 'Blast it, man, let the girl be!'

'An' have my brains knocked out with a bottle? I'll see you flaming first!'

Done pressed Aurora's fingers apart, and threw the bottle behind the counter.

'Now release her!' he said in a tone conveying a threat.

'Mind your own infernal business!' answered Pete. 'I'll deal with you in half a minute.'

'Release her!' Done was at Quigley's throat with a grip that started Pete's eyes from their sockets, and the elder digger abandoned his hold on Aurora to fight for his own breath. There was a brief struggle, and Jim sent Pete sprawling over a stool.

Quigley picked himself up. He did not rush at Done: he was apparently composed. He undid the wrist and collar buttons of his jumper, drew the garment over his head, and threw it on the floor at Jim's feet.

'I suppose you'll take it fighting!' he said. 'If you won't I'll thump the soul out of you, anyhow.'

Aurora rushed between them, and endeavoured to grapple with Pete again.

'You shall not fight!' she cried. 'You coward! You brute!'

At this juncture Kyley, who had been away replenishing the rum-barrel, entered the tent. He took in the situation at a glance.

'Look after Aurora, Ben!' ordered Mrs. Kyley, and Kyley calmly took the struggling girl in his arms, and handed her bodily over the counter into the washer-woman's gentle care.

Mike was promptly at his mate's back. 'Stave him off, Jim,' he said. 'Use your straight left, and if he gets in throw him. He's a dirty in-fighter.' Mike had boxed a good deal with Done lately, and did not tremble for his friend.

Kyley came forward again. It was no part of his duty to prevent an honourable settlement of a quarrel between man and man, and very far from his inclination.

'If yer meanin' fight,' he said, it's got to be fair, square, an' in order. First man that fouls 'll hear from me. Are you ready?'

The men had formed themselves into ranks along the sides and the end of the tent, leaving a clear space about eighteen feet square. Jim threw aside his shirt, and stood erect and composed. The flannel he wore was sleeveless, and his uncommon length of arm excited the attention of the cognoscenti, and if there was a miner on Diamond Gully who did not know the points of a fighter, he was ashamed to admit it. Done had done most of the windlass work since coming to the field, and his forearm was corrugated with muscle, while the flexors responded to movements like balls of iron starting under the brown skin. His shoulders were broad and set well back, his poise buoyant, and his air of absolute confidence gave a dubious tone to the words of the quidnuncs who were allowing Quigley three minutes to whip him out of all recognition. Done looked slight and small before his big opponent, but Pete's bigness was due largely to surplus material, and Pete had been anything but a temperate man of late. Jim recollected this in calculating his chances and determining his methods.

'Time!' cried Kyley.

Done took his ground easily, with his left arm well up, and his right in for defence, a style so unusual at that date as to provide a little derision amongst the onlookers. Mike, standing with his arms outspread and his shoulders to the crowd, keeping the ring, smiled complacently. Pete, confident in his height, weight, and strength, was determined to make a short, hot fight of it, and went straight at Jim, both hands up, and launched his right for the young man's face with terrific force. This must have been a decisive blow had Jim's face remained there to receive it, but Done ducked neatly, and the next moment his left was shot into Quigley's cheek, sending the big man staggering, and raising a purple wheal under the eye almost instantly. Pete's composure forsook him at the first set back, and uttering a furious oath he rushed in again, swinging both fists; but that shooting left hand met him full in the mouth, and balked him again, his own sledge-hammer blows falling short of his opponent. He pushed in recklessly, punching right and left, but Jim dodged smartly, slipped under his arm, and jumped to the other end of the ring. Quigley swung round and dashed at him, and once more Done's hard left shot into his face, while the heavy blow of the giant was neatly parried, and again Jim bewildered his man by ducking and slipping from him.

'Why don't you stand up and fight him like a Briton?' cried one of the supporters of the big digger.

'He's fightin' fair, an' as long as he fights fair he'll fight as he dom well pleases!' said Ben Kyley, who had constituted himself referee.

Already Quigley was bleeding freely and panting from his exertions, while Done, who betrayed no excitement and conserved his energies with miserly care, was no more disturbed than if he had been taking a hand at cards. He faced his foe as before, presenting as little as possible of his body for a target, and met Pete's rush this time with an adroit side movement and a heavy lifting blow in the body that made Quigley gasp, and robbed him of the little bit of sense that had remained. He went blundering at Jim, lashing out with left and right. There was a rapid exchange, and using his guard arm in offence for the first time, Jim sent in a swinging blow that crashed on Pete's chin; and Pete dropped as if his legs had suddenly broken under him, and lay in a grotesque attitude, his cheek pressed to the earthen floor, while the assembled miners sent up yells of excitement that presently settled into a babel of criticism.

Quigley made an effort to rise, but collapsed, and was lifted into his corner, and freely sprayed and towelled by his seconds. Jim sat unmoved, while Mike and an aristocratic digger, known as the Prodigal, fanned him with the towels Mrs. Kyley had thoughtfully provided.

Quigley came up again at the call. He was still blinking and a little dazed, but far from being beaten, and the first round had taught him a lesson. He advanced more warily, displaying some little respect for his enemy's darting left, but Jim's tactics puzzled and disgusted him. The young man was as nimble as a cat, and no matter how Pete pushed him, he always broke ground and slipped away when it seemed that his towering opponent had him at his mercy.

'Why don't you fight, blast yer!' stuttered Pete, swinging on the runaway for the third time in two minutes.

'Yes, stand up to it. This ain't a dancing lesson!' his second growled.

Jim's answer was a quick feint and a hard drive on the nose with the left, following up quickly with the right on Quigley's ear. Both blows sank in deeply, and Jim eluded Pete's rush, jumped out of his reach, and, coming at him from the side, punched him heavily in the neck, whereat Mike and his friends clamoured joyously. Quigley rushed at Jim, spitting oaths, but he was a better fighter than he appeared to be, and was prepared for the other's swift, cutting left hand by this, and, ducking, he landed both fists on Jim's body. Jim countered on the ear and neck, there was a fierce rally that set the crowd jumping and shouting madly, and Jim slid out and skipped away, then got back at Pete before he had quite realized what had happened with a powerful blow over the kidneys.

Pete's blood was up; he set his teeth, and went at Done with hungry passion. The young man's style of fighting was new to most of the onlookers, and few of them appreciated it. What they liked was to see combatants stand up to each other, giving punch for punch, a system in which the strong brute had all the advantage. Adroitness in avoiding punishment was not regarded with favour; but, in spite of the derisive cries of Quigley's backers, Jim kept strictly to his methods.

'Shut up, you!' cried Kyley. 'The lad's fightin' his own battle, an' fightin' it well. He could wipe the floor with a bunch of you.'

Breathing heavily, and looking extremely ugly under his blood and bruises, Pete followed Jim round, watching for an opportunity to rush in and grip him. He felt that it was only necessary for him to get the smaller man in his arms to settle the contest once and for all; but Jim fought him warily, sparring, ducking, and dodging, cutting Pete again and again with left-hand punches, or clipping him neatly with a swinging right when an opening offered. Taking advantage of an instant when Done was driven against the line of men, Quigley bore in, shaking his head from a blow that might have felled a bullock, and, clasping Jim round the waist, deliberately carried him into the centre of the ring, making nothing of the short-arm punches that cut like a hammer. Three times he tried to dash Done to the ground, but the latter was lithe as a serpent, and his limbs writhed themselves about Quigley and clung tenaciously. The crowd was shouting the two men's names, and exchanging cries of triumph and abuse. Suddenly an arm shot across Pete's breast, an elbow was driven into his throat, the two men wheeled, and the big one was sprung from his feet and sent down, with a stunning shock. The yelling ceased suddenly, every eye was upon Quigley.

'My God! he's killed!' said one awed voice.

They dragged Pete to his corner, and Jim submitted himself to the attentions of his seconds. All the passion had gone out of his heart before the first round was finished: there remained no emotion but the lust of conquest. Aurora, who had watched the fight lying across the counter under the washer-woman's restraining arm, her dark eyes shining, her face ablaze, beat the boards with her knuckles, and cried out incessantly, a prey to a fever of excitement that quivered in all her flesh.

'Time!' cried Ben Kyley, and the men came to the scratch for the third round, Pete badly shaken, but game and still eager.

'Stand in an' fight me, an' I'll belt the hide off you!' he said savagely.

Jim laughed mockingly, and pushed his face forward, inviting the other to lead, and when Pete lunged at it he ducked, and got right and left on to his enemy's ribs, slipping, away under Pete's arm when he endeavoured to return the blows. For a time Jim simply led the big man a dance round the ring, landing a stinging blow now and then, to add to Pete's discomfiture; but the latter got him cornered at last, and the thud, thud, thud of the blows stirred the crowd to enthusiasm once more. Pete got after Jim smartly when the latter broke ground, and landed his best blow, a heavy right swing on the temple that sent Done down, and left him confused for a few seconds. Quigley's friends shouted themselves hoarse as Mike helped his mate to the chair.

'How goes it, Jim?' asked Burton anxiously.

'He's beaten, but my hat won't fit me for a day or two,' answered Done, smiling through the water.

Quigley showed his bad condition very markedly when he came up, and Jim, excepting for a cut chin and a big lump over his temple, appeared none the worse. Pete maintained his wild policy, rushing the young man about the ring, wasting energy in terrible blows that were rarely within a foot of their object, while Done, who scarcely seemed to be fighting at all, slipped in every now and again and battered Pete's body, chary of hitting his cut and swollen face. This was maintained for two rounds more, and three times Quigley went down. When time was called for the seventh round Jim said decisively:

'I'll fight the man no more! He's beaten!'

There was a yell from Quigley's corner, and Pete rushed Jim, forcing him back among the men. Again they clinched, but Jim broke away, and Quigley followed, almost blind, and scarcely able to stagger. Done put him off with the left, and drove in a right-hand blow that took Pete on the point of the chin, sending him to earth, helpless and hopelessly beaten.

'Jimmy Done's the winner,' said Kyley authoritatively, when a measure of quiet was restored, 'an' I don't mind sayin' I ain't seen a prettier bit o' fightin' this five year. You've got a lot o' Tom Sayers's dainty tricks, my lad!' he added, shaking Done by the hand.

XI

THE miners pressed about the victor, eager to shake hands with him, and invitations to drink were showered upon him. Aurora clamoured on the out skirts of this crowd, trying to fight her way through, still half delirious with excitement and exultation, calling Jim's name. Her rapture was uncouth, half savage; she had many of the instincts of the primitive woman. But Mike dragged Done's shirt over his head and led his mate away. Burton prepared a hot tub for Jim that night, and after nine hours' sleep the hero awakened on Sunday morning with only a bruise or two, a lump on his forehead, and a stiff and battered feeling about the ribs, to remind him of his fight with Quigley.

It was a pleasant morning, the winter was already well advanced; but only an improved water-supply, an occasional wetting at the windlass, and the need of a rug on the bunk, marked the change of season, so far as Jim could see. There was no place for verdure on Diamond Gully; the whole field turned upside down, littered with the debris of the mines, washed with yellow slurry, and strewn in places with white boulders and the gravel tailings sluiced clean by the gold-seekers. The creek, recently a limpid rivulet, was now a sluggish, muddy stream, winding about its tumbled bed; but a bright sky was over all, and a benignant sun smiled upon the gully, scintillating among the tailings and burnishing the muddy stream to silver. The tents looked white and clean, and the smoke from the camp-fires rose straight and high in the peaceful atmosphere. A strange quiet was upon the lead; it needed only the chastened clanging of a church-bell to complete the suggestion of an English Sabbath.

Jim was sitting on the foot of his bunk reading. Mike had gone up the creek on a prospecting expedition. Presently a magpie in a dead tree at a little distance burst into full-throated melody. Done dropped his book to listen. That clarion of jubilation always delighted him. It seemed to him that if the young Australian republic men were talking of ever came into being its anthem must ring with the wild, free notes of its bravest singing-bird.

'So the bold hayro was not kilt intoirely?' Aurora was smiling in at him, her eyes full of sunshine, her cheeks suffused with more than their wonted colour. 'Are ye axin' me in? Thank ye, kind sir.' She slipped into the tent, and, placing a hand upon each shoulder, examined him critically, while he smiled back into her face, and wondered why she brought with her suggestions of a bounteous rose-garden. 'Ah, Jimmy, I thought I'd hardly know ye!

'"Where are your eyes that looked so mild? Hurroo! Hurroo! Where are your eyes that looked so mild Hurroo! Hurroo! Where are your eyes that looked so mild, When my poor heart you first beguiled?"

She sang no more, but sank upon his knee, and her arms were about his neck. Her accent was mischievious, but there was the fire of rubies in her eyes.

'They're both there fast enough,' laughed Jim. 'An' niver a black one among them. The big fellow didn't spoil your picture, then? Ah, Jim, it was fine! fine! fine! It maddened me with delight to see you beating him. You—you sprig of a fighting devil, I love you for it!'

Jim's heart took fire at hers. He strained her to him, and his lips sank upon her handsome, eager mouth in a long kiss that transported him.

'Dearest, you have kissed my heart,' she whispered. 'You fought him for the love of me, didn't you?'

Only twice in his life had he kissed a woman, and as if greedy from long fasting he kissed her now, lips, cheeks, eyes, and neck. His lips searched the deep corners of her mouth.

'But you don't say you love me, ma bouchal!' Aurora murmured, and her arms tightened about his neck.

'You are beautiful! You are beautiful!' he said fiercely.

'But you don't say you love me!'

'I love you! I love you! I love you!' There was not now in the young man's mind any self-questioning; there was no probing for logical reasons, no doubting, no examining emotions in a suspicious, pessimistic spirit. Done abandon himself to the delicious intoxication of the moment, and Aurora was transfigured under his caresses her aggressiveness, her bonhomie, her bold independence of spirit, were all gone; she developed a clinging and almost infantile tenderness, and breathed about him a cloud of ecstasy.

When Burton returned in two hours' time, Done said nothing about Aurora's visit, but Mike did not fail to mark his mate's demeanour, which was unusually thoughtful.

'Not feelin' too bright, old man?' asked Mike

'Nonsense, Mike; I'm all right.'

'Thought p'r'aps those rib-benders o' Quigley's were pullin' you up.'

'Not a bit of it. I haven't a thought to spare for Quigley.'

Burton understood better later in the evening, when he saw Jim and Aurora sitting together at Kyley's in the dim corner furthest from the wide fireplace, and the Geordie touched him on the arm and jerked his thumb in their direction.

'She was down to your tent to see after her champion this mornin',' he said.

'Spoils to the victor!' said the Prodigal.

Mike's eyes drifted towards Jim and Aurora several times during the evening, and he thumbed his chin in a troubled way. He had been thinking it was almost time to try fresh fields; but it was not going to be so easy a matter to shift as he had imagined.

A few nights later, seizing the opportunity when he was alone in the tent, Jim cut the stitches that secured the locket containing Lucy Woodrow's portrait in the breast pocket of his jumper, convenient to his heart; and drawing from under his pillow the tin box that held his mother's brooch and picture, and the few papers and heirlooms he cherished, he placed Lucy's gift somewhat reverently amongst his treasures, and hastily stowed the box away again. He had formulated no definite reason for doing this, and experienced some contrition in performing the act, and a sense of relief when it was done.

The young man's complete victory over Quigley made his reputation throughout Diamond Gully. Pete Quigley had two or three hard-won battles to his credit, and it was thought there was no man on the field so hard to handle, with the exception of Ben Kyley, whose showing against a professional of Bendigo's calibre set him on a plane above the mere amateur. Pete confessed himself beaten without equivocation.

'I ain't got any patience with this blanky new fangled style o' fightin',' he said. 'A man ought to toe the scratch an' take his gruel like a man. With those Johnnie-jump-ups it's all cut an' run, an' I admit it licks me. I ain't neither a foot-racer nor a acrobat, an' Done gave me as much as I cared about.'

Indeed, Quigley looked it. The fact was patent on the face of him, and he would not be in a condition to dispute the thoroughness of his trouncing for three weeks at least.

Jim was regarded as a celebrity. Strangers even went to him, and gravely asked to be permitted to shake hands with him as such. He was pointed out to newcomers, and observed on all hands with a serious respect that had all the comedy of piquant burlesque.

''Pon my soul, Mike!' said Jim, 'if your republic comes while my popularity lasts, I shall be first President.'

'Well,' answered Mike soberly, 'if you could talk as well as you fight, I'd like your chances.'

Done's opportunity of increasing his popularity came on the following Saturday. The Saturday afternoon off was strictly observed on the rushes. The miners were nearly all batchers—that is, bachelors keeping house for themselves—and the tidy men amongst them needed one half-day for washing and cleaning and putting their tents in order. Only the more prodigal spirits cared to pay Mrs. Kyley's exorbitant rates for laundry work, and for the others who cherished a respect for cleanliness—the nearest the ordinary digger came to Godliness—Saturday afternoon was washing day, and scores might have been seen after crib outside their tents performing the laundress's office, usually astride a log, on which 'the wash' was spread to be alternately splashed and soaped and rubbed. Saturday was the great 'settling day,' too. If there were any differences to be fought out, or any disputes requiring the nice adjustment of the prize-ring, they were almost in variably made fixtures for Saturday afternoon.

For a month past Aurora had forcibly taken over the mates' washing, and as they were well-disciplined batchers who performed their domestic duties effectually from day to day, for them Saturday afternoon was really a holiday; and on this particular afternoon they were sitting in the open, sunning themselves, and talking with the Prodigal of the latest news from Ballarat, where the leaders of the diggers' cause were agitating resolutely for alterations in the mining laws and reform of the Constitution, when a party of about twenty men approached them from the direction of Forest Creek. The party halted at a distance of about fifty yards, and after a short conference two of the men came on.

'Hello!' said Mike, 'here's trouble.'

'Five ounces to a bone button they are looking for fight, added the Prodigal.

'Good day, mates!' The foremost of the two strangers greeted them with marked civility, and the friends replied in kind. 'One of you is the man that beat Pete Quigley, we're told.'

'This is Jim Done,' said Mike, giving an informal introduction, indicating Jim with the toss of a pebble.

'Glad to know you,' the other said, with some show of deference. 'Fact is, we've got a man here who's willing to fight you for anything you care to mention up to fifty pounds.'

'What!' cried Done in amazement.

'Oh, quite friendly, and all that. He hasn't anything against you.'

'Confound his cheek! Does he—do you think I've nothing better to do than to offer myself to be thumped by every blackguardly bruiser who comes along?'

'Softly, mate; no need for hard names. We come here as sportsmen, making you a fair offer, thinking, perhaps, you'd be glad of a bit of a rough-up this fine day.'

'Then you can go to the devil!' said Jim, laughing in spite of himself.

'You won't fight?'

'I will not. I'm no fighting man. I only fight when forced, and then with a bad grace, I can assure you.'

The two men looked quite pathetic in their disappointment as they turned to rejoin their companions.

'Well, of all the outrageous—' gasped Jim.

'Price of fame! said the Prodigal.

Mike grinned. 'Don't be selfish, Jim. I've got nothing to do this afternoon, an' would just as soon watch a good scrap. Why not oblige the kind gentleman?'

'You and the kind gentleman can go hang!'

'They've got Brummy the Nut there,' the Prodigal said. 'Brummy is a lag who had all the sensibilities battered out of him in the quarries. He has no science, but hits like the kick of a cart-horse, and is humbly grateful for punishment that would knock the hide off an old man hippopotamus.'

'Look here, you won't disappoint poor Brummy the Nut,' pleaded Mike, with mock gravity.

The deputation of two returned after another conference.

'How would you take it,' asked the first speaker—. 'mind, we're just asking, being anxious to bring about a friendly meeting—how would you take it if our man gave you a bit of a clip over the ear?'

This was put as a reasonable possibility, and as a simple and pleasant method of establishing a casus belli that might satisfy Done's ridiculous punctilio.

'I'd take it very badly,' said Jim warmly, 'and probably knock your man's confounded head off his shoulders with this pick-handle.'

''Twouldn't be done unfriendly,' said the second man in a hurt tone.

'Why doesn't your man show himself?'

'They guessed his beauty would prejudice you,' said the Prodigal. 'You might have conscientious scruples, and refuse to do anything to mar so perfect a specimen of Nature's handiwork.'

One of the strangers beckoned, and his party advanced with their champion. Done gazed wonderingly at the man they brought against him. Brummy the Nut was perhaps five feet nine inches in height, but walked in the stooping attitude of a person under a burden, his long arms swinging in a manner that strengthened the hint of gorilla in his broad, battered face; he dragged his feet as if the ball and chain were still at his heels, and, despite the enormous strength suggested by his massive limbs and great trunk, bore himself with a childish meekness in ludicrous contrast with his sinister appearance. All that long years in a convict hell could do to rob a man of the grace of humanity and harden him to pain and labour had been done for Brummy the Nut. The Nut favoured Jim, Mike, and the Prodigal each with a duck of the head and a movement of his hand towards the forehead.

'This is our man, Brummy the Nut,' said the party's spokesman.

'Well, Brummy, I won't fight you,' replied Done. Brummy ducked his head again, and muttered something in a husky voice about being 'proud to hey a fr'en'ly go with any gent ez is a gent.'

'He's a gentleman amateur like yourself,' said the spokesman persuasively 'and a fairer fighter never stripped.'

'Oh, make tracks!' retorted Burton with some impatience. 'We're tired. Set your man-eater at a red-gum butt or a bull—something in his class.'

'It's very disappointing after coming so far to oblige you.'

'You didn't receive a pressing invitation from any body here,' said Jim.

'Any other day,' ventured the Nut deferentially in his small, hoarse voice, intelligible only at intervals. 'Way o' friendship—no ill-feelin's—gent ez is a gent—no 'arm did.'

'I'll not fight you at any time,' Done replied. 'You see, Brummy, my friend hesitates to raise false hopes in your heart,' said the Prodigal. 'He might promise to punch the hair and hide off you at some future date, and then disappoint all your tender, joyful anticipations; but he's not a man of that sort: he tells you straight he wouldn't attempt to 'spoil beauty like yours for all the gilt in the Gravel Pits.'

'Gent don't wanter fight,' whispered Brummy; 'tha's all right—no 'arm did.' Brummy was the only man of his party who betrayed no feeling whatever in the matter.

There was a further conference, and the spokesman turned to Jim again.

Brummy claims the championship of Diamond Gully,' he said.

'That's no business of mine. He's welcome to claim anything he takes a fancy to for me,' replied Jim.

'No ill-feelin's——way o' frien'ship,' said the husky champion; and he made his curious salutation again, and went shuffling off with his keepers, who had the airs of sorely ill-used citizens.

'Well,' gasped Jim, 'if this is what a man brings down on himself by waging a casual battle in his own defence, I'll be careful to keep out of fights in the future.'

However, Jim Done was not again called upon to do battle while he remained on Diamond Gully. The reputation he had won was a guarantee against further molestation and Aurora's open and unabashed devotion prevented any approach to serious rivalry. The girl still preserved her manner of a boon companion in the presence of Mrs. Ben Kyley's customers, but no man of them was given occasion for the ghost of a hope of supplanting Jim in her tempestuous heart. She now assumed towards Done an attitude of happy submission; the quizzical insistence on his boyishness was abandoned: she acknowledged her master with an exuberant rapture that had not the faintest suspicion of coyness, and although Jim often blushed under it, and experienced a great uneasiness in the course of a public demonstration, Aurora showed a barbaric disregard for contemporary opinion. She felt no shame in the presence of her emotions, and consequently had no impulse to hide them. She beguiled Jim from his work to take long rambles; she devoted herself to him, to the neglect of Mrs. Ben Kyley's patrons.

Mike Burton was often lonely in his tent, and often Mrs. Kyley stormed at Jim, highly vociferous and wildly pantomimic, but good-natured and sympathetic at bottom, for there was a vagabondish harmony between the two women that made them fast friends, and caused Mary Kyley to feel a share in Aurora's happiness.

The writing of the letter to Lucy Woodrow was now indefinitely postponed, and Jim found himself reluctant to open the box containing Lucy's locket. When his hand fell upon it by chance he put it by hastily, as if it were just possible that the face in the trinket might force itself upon his attention. He never lived to understand this fugitive idea, for the thoughts were cast aside just as hastily, and with an absurd touch of impatience.

The young man had given himself up to Aurora's influence. The plenitude and the ardour of her love carried him along; he felt at times like a twig in a torrent, but the sensation was luxurious, and another joy of life was with him. He opened wide arms to it. Once again he saw the world with new eyes, and for having despised and mistrusted it so found it the more adorable. He squared his shoulders and experienced a curious sensation of physical growth and accrued manhood. Two years ago he might have weighed his feelings for Aurora and hers for him, and sought out motives; to-day he went along the flow of life, unresisting, with a leaping heart, and had he been questioned would have said that not he but the world had changed.

Mike Burton watched the development of events in a judicial way, without offering any comment. There had not been a waste month in his life for as long as he could remember. In spite of his busy days and his Bush breeding, he had been much in touch with the humanities, and he knew men and women well enough to expect no startling surprises from them; but Jim was a curiosity. With a certain robustness of character, no little knowledge, and considerable worldly wisdom in abstract matters, the younger man yet seemed to bring a boy's mind to bear upon actualities, and excited himself absurdly over matters which, from Mike's patriarchal point of view, were merely the expected events of existence—the things that happen to all men, and about which no man need distress himself. He had seen a good deal of the women of the camps, and thought he knew the types well. He summed up Aurora to his own satisfaction: 'Like an eel—easy to catch, but hard to hold!' Amongst other pleasant qualities, Mike had the comfortable human one of often being wrong in his estimates of men and women and things. He expected the girl's infatuation to wear itself out quickly, and meanwhile possessed his soul with patience, prospected here and there, tried new claims, and found a few payable and one rich before the summer came again; but he wanted to try the other rushes, and the winter passed without his having broached the matter to Done.

Jim was quite ignorant of the fact that he was making unfair demands upon his mate's loyalty. They were doing well on the whole; the life on Diamond Gully had lost none of its attractiveness—it was still vigorous and eventful. There had been a riot in Forest Creek during May, providing a stirring week, and many alarms and excursions on the part of the miners and the license-hunters. Solo had visited Diamond Gully again, and neatly victimized Cootmeyer—a gold-buyer at one of the stores—gagging his victim with his own bacon-knife, and imprisoning him in a salt-pork barrel. The revolutionary feeling in the hearts of the men had increased in intensity, and the talk about the camp-fires stirred the bad blood to fever-heat. To Done time had gone on wings so swift that he could not mark its flight. Burton, a nomad in blood and breeding, thirsted for change, and in ordinary circumstances would have rolled his swag and gone on alone long ago; but the liking he had for Jim was the strongest emotion that had crept into his stolid soul, excepting only the affection he bore for a certain black-browed boss-cockie's daughter on the Sydney side, and be found it hard to break away. But Aurora's hold on Jim had not weakened so far as he could judge, and the time came at length when his restless spirit drove him on. He broke the news to Jim one night as they lay in their bunks, he smoking, Jim reading.

'I'm full o' this, old man,' he said abruptly.

'Of what?'

'Oh, of Diamond Gully! I reckon it's played out or thereabouts.'

'And we got twelve ounces a man for the last week's work.

'Not enough, Jimmy. Not more 'n wages, an' men like you 'n me should be in the thickest an' richest of it. I'm gettin' along to-morrow.'

'You mean to say you are going?' Done jerked himself on to his elbow and stared across the tent at his mate.

'Um—m Mean to try a new rush.'

'Anything wrong, Mike? Have I been getting on your raw lately? You want to break up this partner ship of ours.'

'My oath, no!' Mike had raised himself eagerly, and was looking at Jim.

Then you reckoned on having me along?'

'No; I thought maybe you wouldn't care to pad out from here jes' yet awhile.

'If it rests with me, mate, where you go I go. You've given me a bit of a jolt, old man.'

'You'll come, then?' cried Mike.

'Why, yes! What should keep me?'

The two men gripped hands, and a few minutes of, silence followed, during which Mike's pipe went out and Jim's book fell to the floor. Both were more moved than they cared to show.

'This makes things much more comfortable,' said Burton presently.

'Where do we go?'

'To Jim Crow, an' from there we may make tracks to Ballarat.

'To Ballarat!' The name epitomized all that Done knew of mining life and the aspirations of the diggers.

'Yes, Jim. If there's goin' to be fightin', we must be in it.'

'Mike,' said Jim, breaking the thoughtful silence that followed, 'what put into your head the mad idea that I would want to break with you? God, man, I'd be a desolate, helpless wastrel without you!'

'Aurora!' said Mike sententiously.

'Aurora!' Jim sat up abruptly, and then sank slowly back upon his pillow again. It was very curious, but till this moment no thought of Aurora had occurred to him.

Mike blew out the candle, and it was quite half an hour later when he said, speaking as if the conversation had just been dropped: 'You'll go all the same, Jimmy?'

'Yes,' said Jim, with the emphasis of a man making a resolution.

XII

AURORA! What would she say? What would she do? It was less the thought of his losing Aurora than the picture of her great distress that worried him. She would be broken-hearted. And yet go he must, there was no question of that; he had not come to Australia to tether himself to a woman's apron strings, even though that woman be the brightest and winsomest of her sex—excepting one. He smuggled that saving clause in in a cowardly way. He had carefully masked his treachery even to his own eyes, and yet it was treachery that was in his bones. Of course, he must assure her that they would meet again: they were not necessarily parting for ever; but even as these thoughts worked in his mind he was not conscious of any anxiety at the prospect of a lasting separation. Jim did not realize to what extent the passion for Aurora had fastened upon his blood; he still liked her, there remained a decided tenderness, and he hated the idea of hurting her or causing her grief. This was the better part of his liking for the girl, but the vehement selfishness seemed to have gone from his love, and without a fierce note of selfishness love becomes as pale as friendship. She had been a wonder, a revelation, a great glory; she had become merely an attractive, handsome girl, rather exuberant in her affection. If Done were our villain we could show him unmanly, ignoble, and vile for all this, but not one voluntary impulse went to the making of his present attitude; it was a development entirely foreign to his will, and that much at least must be remembered in the defence of our hero.

Mike put off their departure a day. He had intended leaving the tools and camp-ware with his mate, but now it was necessary to make arrangements with a teamster to follow them to the new rush with their property.

Done approached Aurora with great misgivings; he expected a passionate demonstration. There had been no sign of waning affection on her part; on the contrary, she had seemed to grow more devoted to him.

'Burton thinks this field is pretty well worked out,' said Jim, as a preparatory announcement.

'Well, I suppose it is, Jimmy. Been panning out badly of late?'

'Not very badly, old girl; but not good enough compared with what we hear of from the other fields.'

She was sitting on the counter, holding his arm, and turned and looked sharply into his face.

'You're off?' she said.

Done nodded his head, and watched her apprehensively. She was not disturbed; next moment there was merriment in the eyes turned up to him from where her head nestled on his breast.

'Mike thinks we are wasting valuable time here.'

And you are, too. Good luck go wid you, ma bouchal' She kissed the point of his chin.

'You don't mind, Aurora?' He had come in shivering with apprehension at the prospect of a passionate outburst, knowing the possibilities of her fervid temperament, and now experienced some sense of disappointment at finding her unmoved.

'Mind, darlin'? Cud I expect to be keepin' you here all the days of your life? Where are you going?'

'To the new diggin's, Jim Crow.'

'It's a wild field, they tell me, Jimmy. No fighting, mind. Leastwise, none for other girls.'

'We start early in the morning.'

'I'll be up to throw an old shoe after you.'

'I came to say good-bye to-night.'

'Good-bye, is it?' She flashed upon him, her face crimsoned, and a look, half fearful, half angry, glowed in her splendid eyes. But the feeling was only momentary; laughter rippled into her cheeks again, and she wound her arms about his neck. 'Good-bye?' she said. 'And isn't it breakin' your heart you are to be sayin' good-bye to me?'

Done clasped her closer, and kissed her, stirred by her warmth and her beauty.

'Ah, my dear, dear boy, you may say good-bye to me a thousand times if you'll cure the sting with such kisses,' she said softly.

When Jim returned to their tent he found Burton already abed. Mike continued to read his paper, smoking placidly, but he was feeling no little concern. He had feared the result of that last interview with Aurora, and now waited the word from Done, who seated himself on his bunk and unlaced his boots in silence.

'She took it without a whimper,' he said presently.

'No!'

'She didn't speak a word or raise a finger to keep me.'

'Well, I'm blowed!' Burton was openly delighted; not so Done, who, true to the contrariness of poor human nature, was apparently quite depressed.

Jim Crow, maddest of fields, like Tarrangower, which came later, resort of the most turbulent spirits, and a favourite centre with runaway convicts, gold-robbers, and the riffraff of the rushes, was still young when Burton and Done went, hastening down the hills on to the lead, with the thin but turbulent stream of diggers, but its character was already formed. Here the revolver was counted among the necessities of life, and although the main body of the diggers, as on all the other fields, were sober, industrious, and decent men, there was so strong a leaven of dare-devils and so varied an admixture of rogues and vagabonds that Jim Crow quickly won itself an unenviable reputation on all the rushes, from Buninyong to Bendigo, and, rich as it was, diggers found it as difficult to keep their gold as to win it. The Jim Crow ranges were within an hour's flight, and offered splendid cover for the members of Coleman's gang, or the friends of Black Douglas, or any other rapscallion who preferred stealing gold to seeking it.

On the day of their arrival at Jim Crow the mates pegged out a claim and pitched their tent, which Mike had added to his swag. With the help of Mrs. Ben Kyley, they had succeeded in depositing the larger part of their earnings at Diamond Gully in a Melbourne bank, and now they were hampered with no great responsibility in the way of riches. That night Jim and Mike walked over the field, through the clustering tents, and Jim discovered that what he had taken for a wild life at Diamond Gully was peace itself compared with the devilment and disorder of a new field. Jim Crow had opened well, the first discoveries were enormously rich, and the restless diggers were pouring in from all quarters, and glare and confusion and a babel of music and tongues rioted in the camp. Here, again, Jim was struck with the untamed boyishness of the miners; their levity was that of coarse, healthy children. 'Is it civilization that is choking gaiety out of the souls of men?' he asked himself.

Done had a curious experience on the following day. He had gone to the tent to light the fire, boil the billy, and prepare the mid-day meal, and was carrying water from a convenient spring, when, in passing the tent of their nearest neighbours, twin brothers named Peetree, the first prospectors of Jim Crow, he was startled by a furious yell, more like the howl of a madman than the cry of a sentient creature. Jim turned and looked about. There was nobody within sight from whom the amazing sound could have come, but as he stood the cry was repeated. Done set down his billy, and, approaching the tent, peeped in. There was nobody there, but again the wild cry rang out. He looked under the bunks, and then walked round the tent, but discovered nothing to explain the mystery. He paused dubiously, suspecting a trick, when for the fourth time he heard the marrow-chilling scream, and this time so near that he sprang aside in real alarm. Against the side of the tent, chocked to prevent its rolling, was a barrel, brought to Jim Crow by the Peetrees to be cut into two puddling-tubs, no doubt. Jim examined it suspiciously.

'Le' me out, yer swines! le' me out!' cried a shrill old voice, following the words with a long dolorous howl, not unlike that of a moonstruck cur.

'Who the devil are you?' asked Done. 'What are you doing in there?'

His words only served to enrage the man in the cask; he had a paroxysm of linguistic fury, and curses spouted from the bunghole a geyser of profanity.

'I'll be the death o' you when I get loose!' screamed the prisoner. Another long-drawn yell followed, and then sounds as of a terrible struggle going on inside, with occasional cries and curses.

Done was greatly perplexed, but there was, he thought, only one course open to him. A fellow-creature was pent in the barrel, and it was manifestly his duty to go to the rescue. He had seized the Peetrees' axe with the intention of knocking in the head of the cask, when a warning shout from the direction of the lead caused him to desist. One of the Peetree brothers was running up from their claim. He arrived angry and breathless.

'What in thunder 're you up to?' he panted.

'There's a man in that barrel,' answered Jim.

'Well, I'm likely to know all about that, ain't I? Drop that axe and mooch along after your own business.'

'I don't know,' said Done, 'but it seems to me that this is almost any man's business. You're not at liberty to keep a fellow-creature cooped in a barrel at your own pleasure, even on Jim Crow.'

'That's just so, but the man in there's my father, which makes a dif'rence, perhaps.'

'Your father? Are you keeping the old man in pickle?'

'No; we're keeping him outer mischief, an' that ought to be enough for you.'

'Of course, I don't want to interfere with your family arrangements, but this is a bit out of the ordinary, and you'll admit my action was only natural.' Jim picked up his billy and crossed to his own tent, the man in the barrel breaking into fresh clamour, and calling down Heaven's vengeance on his son's head through the bunghole.

'Shut up, you infernal ole idiot!' cried the dutiful son. While Done was busy over the fire, Peetree junior drove the bung into the barrel, and then rejoined our hero.

'Naturally, you wouldn't understan',' he said, jerking his thumb towards the barrel, 'but the ole man's such a dashed nuisance when he's on we gotter do somethin' with him.' The tone was apologetic.

'I dare say you are quite justified,' Jim answered. 'A man doesn't keep his father in a barrel for mere amusement.'

'No, he don't ordinary, does he?' answered the native gravely. 'Fact is, the dad goes on a tear now 'n again, an' we pen him up to sober off. We can look after him all right after knocking off, but if we was to let him loose while we was at work he'd go pourin' Bill Mooney's fork-lightnin' gin into him till he had his bluchers full o' snakes 'an the whole lead swarmin' with fantods. So when he starts to work up a jamboree we pull off his boots an' tuck him in the tub, fastens the head, an' leave him till he's willin' to think better of it.'

'Well, that's bringing up a father in the way he should go,' laughed Jim. 'I apologize for attempting to break into your inebriates' retreat.'

'Inebriates' retreat!' A wide grin slowly developed on Peetree's gaunt face. 'That's a first name for it,' he said. 'Hanged if we don't have it painted up!'

'A sign of some kind is necessary. But isn't the old man likely to suffocate with that bung in?'

'Not he; there's heaps o' breathin' in the cask. That bung's just to gag him awhile.'

That evening after tea the two sons, with old Peetree under guard between them, joined the mates at their fire. Harry, Jim's friend of the morning's adventure, was about twenty-eight, tall and bony, with the shoulder stoop of a hard worker. Con and the father had the same general peculiarities. The three were identical in height and complexion, and in their mannerism and tricks of speech; but to-night the old man had a vacant, helpless expression, and seemed for the greater part of the time unconscious of the company he was in, and looked furtively about him into the night, muttering strangely to himself, and picking eagerly at his shirt-sleeves. The sons pressed their father to a sitting position, and then seated themselves one on each side, mounting guard.

'See, we got him loose again,' said Harry.

'He's milder to-night,' answered Done. 'What's the matter with him?'

'Only a touch o' the jims. He's liable to howl a bit now 'n again, but don't mind him. He's all right. Ain't you, dad?' He gave the old man's head an affectionate push.

'Once he takes to smoke he's comin' round,' said Con Peetree, making a vain attempt to induce the old man to draw at his pipe.

'There ain't a finer ole tough walkin' when he's off the licker,' said the elder proudly, 'an' not a better miner-ever lived.'

Done watched the group with keen delight. The young men's respect for their bibulous parent was quite sincere, their care of him was marked with a rough but unmistakable liking. The conversation turned upon the characteristics of the lead at Jim Crow, and drifted to the inevitable subject, the development of the agitation for the emancipation of the miners and the doings and sayings of the insurgent party at Ballarat, and every now and again Peetree senior would whisper ambiguously: 'There ain't such a thing ez a drop of gin? No, of course not.'

Once Harry drew a small flask from his pocket, poured a little spirit into a pannikin, and gave it to the old man. 'Hair off his dog, you know,' he said. And two or three times Con made an effort to induce his father to take a whiff of smoke, but old Peetree shook his head disgustedly, and returned to his mutterings and the picking of imaginary tarantulas off his sleeves.

In the morning Jim noticed that the wards 'Inebrits' Retreet' had been printed on the barrel with pipeclay.

The good luck that had marked their initial effort on Diamond Gully followed the mates to Jim Crow. They struck the wash-dirt in their first claim, and Jim, in sinking through the alluvial, stuck his pick into the largest nugget he had yet seen, a lump of rugged gold, pure and clean, which Mike estimated to be worth four hundred pounds. It glowed in the sunlight with the lustre of a live ember, and, gazing upon it, Done trembled again with the vehement joy that thrills in the veins of the least avaricious digger at the sight of such a find.

'If there's a large family o' these we're made men,' said Burton, fondling the nugget.

'Unless some of Douglas's men take a fancy to them when we've unearthed them.'

'Or Solo chips in an' lifts the pile. We must keep it dark till this field sobers up a bit.'

The tub of dirt taken from the bottom of their hole—that is, the deepest part of the strata of alluvial deposit, to which the best of the gold almost in variably gravitates—was extremely rich. The dregs in the tub, after all the clay and dirt had been washed away, blazed with coarse pieces, and Done carried away at least five hundred pounds' worth in nuggets wrapped in his gray jumper. The coarse gold was picked out of the washed gravel, and then the remainder of the stuff was put through the cradle, the slides of which captured and retained the smaller gold, with a certain amount of sand, and this was washed again in the tin dish, the last grains of base material being got rid of by shaking the gold on a sheet of paper after it had been thoroughly dried, and blowing with the mouth, a process at which the diggers became so expert that very little of even the finest gold-dust was lost in the operation.

The mates finished their third day's work on Jim Crow, wet to the hips, smeared from top to toe with yellow clay, dog-weary, but quite jubilant. They were as well satisfied with their next day's work, and the next. They had succeeded in keeping the knowledge of their big find to themselves; but returning to their camp one night about a week later, Done was amazed to find the earthen floor of the tent dug up to a depth of about a foot. Burton grinned.

'Someone's bottomed a shicer to-night,' he said.

'What's the meaning of this?' asked Done.

'We've had a little visit from some damn scoundrel who thought we'd buried our gold here. Must 'a' taken us for a pair o' Johnnie-come-latelies.'

At that moment a shot rang out on the night air, and sounds of angry voices and scuffling came from the direction of the Peetrees' tent.

'By the Lord Harry, they've nabbed him!' said Mike. 'Come along!'

They found Con Peetree holding a man down with a persuasive revolver, while Harry, with a burning match sheltered in his palm, examined the captive.

'Cot him diggin' in our tent. He broke 'way, but I've winged him,' said Harry.

'He gave us a look in, too,' said Mike.

'Lose any stuff?'

'Not a colour.'

'Same here; but we can't let him go scot-free. That kink in the calf counts for nothing, and handin' him over to the beaks means too much worry. Here, give's a light, Burton.'

Mike struck a match, and, taking the thief by the ear, Harry Peetree drew a knife.

'Good God!' cried Jim, 'you don't mean to—' Jim's intervention was too late to help the prostrate man; Peetree had already slashed off the lobe of his left ear. He threw the fragment in the man's face.

'Now scoot!' he said, 'an' don't show yer ugly chiv on Jim Crow again, 'r you'll catch a fatal dose o' lead.

The crippled thief limped away without a word, pressing a palm to his streaming ear.

'That seemed an infernally brutal thing to do,' said Jim to his mate, when they were discussing the incident.

'Not a bit of it,' answered Burton. 'We've got to mark his sort, an' a brand like that's known every where. A bloke with an ear stripped off can't pretend to be a honest man here; he's got to be either a trooper or one of Her Majesty's commissioners.'

'But you weren't at all bitter about Solo.'

'Solo ain't a tent-robber; he generally robs the people who rob us. A tent-robber is the meanest kind of hound that runs.'

Jim was grateful for this lesson in diggers' ethics, and went peacefully to sleep on it, having by this time acquired complete confidence in Burton's hiding-place.

When the mates had more gold than they could carry in their belts with comfort, and trustworthy gold-buyers were not available, choosing a suitable hour long after midnight, Burton dug a hole near the tent, Jim keeping careful watch the while to make sure they were not observed. The gold was placed in a pan, and buried in this hole, and after that the camp-fire was built on the spot, and kept burning day and night. It never occurred to anyone to look under the fire for hidden gold.

Their first claim was nearly worked out, and the two young men were busy below digging out the last of the wash-dirt, when a voice calling down the shaft caused both picks to be suspended simultaneously, and the mates looked curiously into each other's faces in the dim candle-light.

Hello below, there!'

'Aurora!' said Mike.

Jim went up the rope suspended in the shaft hand over hand. Aurora was standing by the windlass smiling down at him. The girl was remarkably well dressed. The gown she wore was too florid, perhaps, for that sickly refinement which abhors colour, but it suited her tall figure and her hale and exuberant good looks. As he came up the shaft the picture she made standing in the sunlight, with a background of sun-splashed, vari-coloured tips, and one drowsing gum-tree fringed with the gold and purple of young growth, gave him a thrill of joy, so vivid she seemed, so fresh. She had occupied his mind little since the departure from Diamond Gully; but seeing her again so radiant, he was glad through and through, and laughed with pure delight when she met him at the shaft's mouth with a kiss. Once upon his feet, he clasped her in his arms. Her walk along the lead had attracted a good deal of attention, and the embrace was the signal for a sympathetic cheer from the miners about, and the men whirled their hats in the air.

'Arrah! Won't ye sarve the bla'gards all alike, darlin'?' cried a young fellow on the left.

Aurora bowed low, and scattered kisses over the field with both hands, winning another cheer. Jim watched her with pride. After all, she it was who stood as his goddess of gaiety in the twelve months of absolutely happy life that had marked the reaction from the brutal stupidity and sourness of that other existence. He owed her much gratitude, much tenderness. He kissed her again almost reverently.

'Did you think I was never coming, Jimmy?' she asked softly.

Jim practised the virtue of equivocation. It had never occurred to him that she would come, but he would rather have bitten a piece off his tongue than have said so just then.

'So you made up your mind to follow the moment I told you I was going?' he said.

'What else? Could I have bid you good-bye so glibly? Could you have walked off with a smile and a kiss, and never a word of coming again?'

'Darling, I can never want to lose you.'

'Whist' no words fer the future!' she said, reverting to her whimsical brogue. 'We're weak mortals, an' every one iv us is born again wid the new sun. I'd not have ye bind the strange man ye may be to-morrow wid oaths, an' I won't bind the unknown colleen I may be for the likes iv ye.'

'But to-day?'

'To-day? To-day I love you with a big, big heart!' she said, with deep feeling. 'Kiss me!'

'Knock off!' cried Burton, whose head appeared suddenly at the mouth of the shaft. 'I reckoned you'd had time to get through with that.'

'Och! we've been a long time gittin' through wid it, an' we're not through yet,' said Aurora, shaking Mike warmly by the hand. 'You may have one for yourself—there.' She placed her finger on a dimple, and Mike kissed her gallantly enough. 'Ah!' she sighed, 'you love another. The kiss betrays you.'

Something that might have been a blush, had the deep tan of his skin permitted such a thing, warmed Burton's cheek.

'And where's Mrs. Ben?' he asked.

'Somewhere about the field.'

'They are with you?' said Jim.

'To be sure; and the whole business—bakery, laundry, and light refreshments—has followed at my skirt with proper humility.'

'They pitch tents here?'

'Ben and Mary are now seeking a good business site.'

'Adjacent to a hollow tree?'

'The same bein' a convanyint haunt fer Mary Kyley's familiar evil shpirits.'

Done laughed, giving Aurora a one-armed, parenthetical hug. 'They wouldn't part with you, then?'

'They would not, nor I with them. Dan's been as good as a mother to me. But how is the luck, boys?'

'Great,' answered Mike. 'We dropped on a patch here.'

'Come and see us cradle the last tubful, and I'll give you the prettiest bit in the hopper,' said Jim.

'Not a colour! The heart nugget you gave me long ago has worn tender places all over me.' She tugged at the thin ribbon about her neck. 'I'll carry no more.'

Done did not press the point, although he knew that she took gifts of quaintly-shaped nuggets from the other men with the indifference of a queen accepting tribute.

Mrs. Ben Kyley greeted the mates with noisy joviality when they met, and Ben took his pipe from his mouth, and said he was 'right down blarsted glad,' which amounted to quite a demonstration, coming from him. Within two days the tents were up, and Mrs. Kyley's business was resumed, and was carried on as at Diamond Gully, and with much the same success. But here for some time Ben's services as 'chucker-out' were more in requisition, spirits being more unruly on Jim Crow. One night he even had to fight a five-round battle with a riotous young Cousin Jack, in which engagement Done seconded him by special request. Ben triumphed, but came out of the contest with a black eye and an inflamed nose of a preposterous size, at which Mary was virtuously indignant.

'You, a professional, fighting for diversion like any fool of a gentleman!' she said scornfully.

'Man mus' keep his hand in,' replied Ben.

'If you can't attend to your duties without making such a mess of yourself, you'd better have a month's notice. What was the good of me taking on a pugilist if I'm to have fighting about the place continually?'

'Come, come, Mrs. Ben,' said Jim; 'if you treat him like this when he wins, what would you do if he lost?'

'Divorce him and take up with the Cornishman!' replied the raffish washerwoman, exploding into Gargantuan laughter.

Done had often thought of Ryder since the night of the troopers' raid on Mrs. Kyley's grog-store, but had seen nothing of him in the meantime. Mike recalled him to his mind again as they were lying out in the moonlight on a Sunday night about two weeks later.

'Remember the chap that tried to throttle Stony that night in the Black Forest?' he said. 'Saw him on the lead to-day.'

'You did? Ryder was hunting Stony on Diamond Gully.'

'He's gettin' pretty warm, then. Stony's here too. That's his tent above the bend to the left. He's a hatter, an' works a lone hand in the shallow ground.'

'Then trouble's brewing for Mr. Stony.'

'You seemed to feel for him. Better drop him the word, hadn't you?'

'No. My sympathies are with the other man, and as he means something short of manslaughter, Stony can take his chances.'

It was not long after this that Jim encountered Stony in Mary Kyley's tent. He was drinking alone, and drinking with the feverish haste of a man who deliberately seeks intoxication. He was more tremulous than when Done first met him, and his face had the colour, and looked as if it might have the consistency, of putty. The man was an instinctive hater: he lived alone, worked alone, and desired no companionship. Previous to the gold discoveries he had served for years in the capacity of shepherd on one of the big Australian sheep-runs, and had lived cut off from communion with his kind in the great lone land, absorbing into his blood the spirit of solitude that broods in the Bush and in time robs man of his gregarious impulses.

Jim had been in the shanty about an hour, and was standing with his back to the counter; Stony was sitting in the corner, his hands clasped between his knees, his eyes fixed upon the floor, unconscious of his surroundings, when the flap of the tent was lifted, and Ryder stepped in, running a keen, searching eye over the company. Jim saw him start as his gaze encountered Stony. He paused for a moment, and then slipped back into darkness, dropping the tent-door after him. Done understood his intention. 'He will wait,' he said to himself, and determined to watch events. Ryder had awakened in him an extraordinary interest.

Stony sat in a state of abstraction for close upon half an hour, and when he arose and left the place Jim followed him. The night was dark, and Stony had disappeared, but the young man walked quietly in the direction of the hatter's camp. He could see nothing of either man, and had decided that he was mistaken regarding Ryder's intention, when a low but blood-chilling sound—the noise made by a man fighting against strangulation—broke upon his ear. He had been seeking for this, but the shock unnerved him for a moment.

XIII

PEERING through the darkness, Done discovered the shadowy figures of two men. The figures were rigid upon the ground. There was no further sound. The young man approached closely and stood by Ryder, dropping his hand upon his shoulder. There was just light enough for him to see a revolver snatched from the belt, or a movement of such suggestiveness, but he fastened on that right arm with a grip to which it succumbed instantly.

'It is I, Jim Done!' he said.

'Save me! Save me!' cried Stony in accents of supreme terror.

'Why do you interfere?' asked Ryder with a ring of anger. 'What interest can you have in this hound?'

'None,' replied Jim. 'I followed from the shanty, guessing something would happen. I'm shamefully curious.'

'You are a fool! It might have cost you your life.'

'You certainly do not show any particular respect for human life.' Jim released the other's arm.

'For Christ's sake don't leave me!' moaned Stony. 'He means murder!'

'I have told you I value this man's life. I tell you again I have no intention of killing him, but I hate him so that the ravenous desire to crush the soul out of him is hard to resist. There is a story he must tell me; when that is told he may go. If he refuses to tell there is no power on God's earth to keep me from my vengeance. But he shall tell—the craven shall tell! There'll be no further mischief done, I promise you. Leave us.'

'For the love of Heaven!' pleaded Stony. 'He'll kill! He'll kill!'

'I have your word,' said Jim.

'My word of honour,' answered Ryder.

'If it's broken, I swear to help you to your hanging.'

'I tell you, I want this man alive.'

'Good-night!'

'Help!' screamed Stony; but the other's hand was at his throat again.

'Listen, you foul cur!' Ryder said. 'I mean to spare you, but you must tell—tell all!'

Jim Done turned and walked away, leaving the enemies alone. Next morning he saw Stony moving about his tent, and experienced a feeling of relief. He had been unable to divest himself of a sense of responsibility for the safety of the miserable hatter.

By this time quite a strong friendship had grown up between the three Peetrees and Done and Burton. Joshua Peetree, whom the twins called Josh, with a friendly absence of formalities, was found in his sober moments to share the moral qualities of his sons, and had the same quiet, deliberative manner of speech, as if every sentence, even those of the most insignificant character, were subjected to two or three successive processes of investigation internally before delivery. Indeed, the men spoke so little en famille that they might have lost ordinary power of easy articulation. Speech was hardly necessary between the three; they understood each other by something very like telepathic divination. At least, so it appeared to Done, who was puzzled again and again to see the ideas of one brother anticipated by the other, and his wishes met without any communication, audible or visible, to the third person. Men who have lived together in the Bush for the better part of their lives, cut off from other society and outside interest, often develop this quaint instinct of mutual apprehension. The Peetrees were not unsociable, but with them conversation was not essential to human intercourse. They were content to sit on a log, or spread themselves on the dry grass in company with friendly diggers, smoking composedly through a whole evening, without contributing more than an approving 'My word!' or 'My colonial!' to the night's debate. Mike was in full sympathy with their neighbours. Like him, they were deeply imbued with the spirit of revolt stirring in the land, and they were as eager to participate in the struggle that was to overthrow the rule of the nominees of Downing Street and strangle the hydra of official tyranny; but Done, although his sentiments were just as strongly on the side of the miners, was too profoundly concerned with the actions and interests of the moment to content himself with the society of the Peetrees and the discussion of possibilities. He liked them; they were amusing elements in the varied life around him, but he wanted to see and to hear. His blood ran too hotly for camp-fire argument. When the time for fighting came, well and good: none would be more eager than he; but meanwhile love and laughter, play and strife, invited a man, and Jim responded with the impetuosity of an impish boy just escaped from parental control.

The mates continued to do well at Jim Crow, and Jim Done found himself growing tolerably rich without any marked gratification. He could not see what more gold could confer upon him. He was now a nightly visitor at Mrs. Ben Kyley's tent, but gambled with rather more spirit of late, and, finding himself a much less easy victim to Mary's rum, drank more than formerly. A certain stage of intoxication—an intoxication of the blood rather than the senses—threw a roseate glamour over the gaieties of the shanty, and robbed him of that remaining reticence of manner and speech that would have kept him an observer rather than a participant.

Police supervision was fitful and weak at Jim Crow, and there were wild nights at Mary Kyley's. Aurora appeared in a new character—that of popular musician. Seated with her heels tucked under her on the end of the shanty bar, she rattled off lively dance-music on an old violin; or, mounted on an inverted tub, she sang songs of rebellion and devilment to a crowd of diggers warm with rum and rampant with animal spirits. Mary Kyley, whose gay heart responded readily to the conviviality of her guests, danced at these times, contesting in breathless jigs and reels, displaying amazing agility and a sort of barbaric frenzy, while the men yelled encouragement and applause, the pannikins circulated, and the smoke gathered in a cloud along the ridge-pole. Sitting above the crowd in a gay gown, with a splash of artificial red roses in her mass of black hair, flushed with animation, her eyes beaded with fire, Aurora was a striking queen of the revels, and Done exulted over her, and called her Joy. It was the new name he had given her, Aurora sounding too formidable for a lover's lips.

One such night Aurora played them 'The Wearing of the Green,' breaking in upon a moment of exuberant merriment with the quaint melancholy of the music. She wrung from the strings a pathetic appeal, and played the crowd into a sudden reverent silence. They were rebel hearts there to a man, and many exiles from Erin were in the company. The simple tune went right home to them all. The men sat still, gazing into their pannikins, and big bearded diggers had a chastened pensiveness that might have been comic had there been any there to laugh at them. Just as suddenly the girl swung into a rollicking dance-step, abandoning her tender mood with a burst of happy laughter; but Tim Carrol, a young new chum; fresh from 'the most distressful country,' sprang to the counter beside her, and, clasping Aurora and her fiddle in a generous hug, kissed the girl on the cheek.

'Shtop!' he cried. 'Niver another word will ye play till the hold iv that's gone from us!'

Done, who was standing near, saw the action, saw Aurora laughing in the man's arms, and experienced a revulsion of feeling that turned him giddy, and blurred the lights and the figures about him. He sprang at Carrol savagely. It seemed to him that what followed occurred in darkness. A few blows, a scuffle, and then he was torn away. The next moment he found himself in Kyley's hands, and Aurora before him, her eyes flashing anger, her white teeth bared, her hands clenched—exactly the termagant she had appeared on the night she confronted Quigley in her wrath; but to-night her fury was directed against him.

'How dare you interfere?' she said. 'How dare you meddle with my affairs?' She struck herself upon the breast. She blazed with passion.

'He kissed you!' said Jim. 'I couldn't stand that!'

'And what of me? If I do not object, what then?'

'Aurora!'

'Am I my own mistress? Are my inclinations to count for something?'

Jim had recovered himself. He felt cold, sobered. He shook the hands off him, 'Your inclinations count for everything!' he said with composure. 'I acted on impulse. I beg your pardon, Aurora. I'll apologize to Carrol if he wishes it. I've had too much rum, Tim; I acted like a fool.'

'Tush, man, 'twas nothin'! You didn't hit me,' said the Irishman cheerfully. 'Don't shpake iv it. I disarved what I didn't get fer kissin' your sweet, heart, any-how.'

Aurora's anger fell from her suddenly, and she moved away. She played no more that night, and was markedly subdued in her manner, turning an anxious eye upon Done every now and again, and Jim, to carry off the situation, was much too free with the liquor and uncommonly friendly with everybody.

'You took my temper like a gentleman, Jimmy dear,' said Aurora, coming behind him when he sat alone. She was bidding for reconciliation.

'I ought to have known better, Joy,' he answered. I was an idiot!'

'No, dear, you were jealous, and that is an easy thing for a woman to forgive.'

'I don't think I was even jealous.'

'Then you should have been!' she said, with a flash of anger.

'Then, if I should have been, I was jealous—furiously, murderously jealous!'

'Sure, how could you blame the poor boy,' she murmured, winding an arm about his neck, 'wid the love of the dear ould sod hot in the heart iv him? 'Twasn't a lover's kiss he gave me, darlin', but a patriot's.'

'This is a lover's, Joy!' He kissed her softly.

All the same, flushed with liquor though he was, he was conscious that his attack on Carrol had been prompted by a meaner impulse than jealousy, and was more a manifestation of the rum-flown arrogance of a man fighting for a prize in the possession of which he felt a large conceit. He was conscious, too, that there was little of a true lover's ardour in the kiss he gave her. But men are deceivers ever, and never so cunning in deceit as when love has slipped from their hearts. To be sure, Jim had the grace to be ashamed of all this in certain moods, but acknowledgment of the sin was not followed by renunciation. Aurora's flash of passion was probably due to the instinct that warned her of the fading of Done's love for her.

Mike took his mate home that night, and had to help him into his bunk, and Jim awoke in the morning with feelings of mistrust and bitterness, a craven consciousness of having been untrue to him self. For a moment there was a belief that his new life was nothing but a dream. He stepped out into the sunshine with a childish fear upon him, and looked about him, breathing deeply, and relief came, but there remained a consciousness of loss of power. Drink was not for him: he was a hale man, full of vitality; in his normal state his sensibilities were capable of drawing the most generous emotions from the events of existence; excess of liquor gave him, in place of that natural gratification, a set of feverish and unreal sensations. He could understand others, from whom Nature withheld the joy of life, finding in intoxication a pale substitute, but for him it was a sacrifice of self, a sacrifice he could not afford, for it was only the other day that self had become sweet to him. How could he exchange his rich reality for the pale, misty, groping unreality he had become last night—give up the exhilaration he derived from the stir of life and friendly contact with men for the fantastic, fleeting emotions of the reveller in drink, emotions that fly through the darkened brain like shooting stars, the stir of a blatant egotism, the prickly heat of tiny, aimless joys that never penetrate below the skin! He determined to be content with sobriety for the future.